Retail Clinics Buddy Up with HIT and MU Lessons from a 3 Year Old

It seems I can’t read a blog, tweet or even old-fashioned newspaper these days without coming across some headline having to do with retail health clinics buddying up to healthcare IT. Announcements from two companies come to mind.

The first involves SoloHealth – developer of health and wellness kiosks. It received FDA approval for its product earlier this summer, and followed that development up with news of financial investment from benefits company WellPoint. It also has announced plans for a national rollout of its kiosks sometime this fall. Assuming its website is up to date, there are SoloHealth Stations across the country at retailers like Walmart, Safeway, Publix, Sam’s Club and Schnucks. CVS appears to be its only traditional retail clinic customer at the moment.

The second involves Greenway Medical – well-known developer of electronic health records for a variety of healthcare organizations, including Walgreen’s Take Care Clinics. It currently has placed its PrimeSuite EHR in more than 700 Take Care pharmacies, and just this week announced plans to implement a custom EHR – WellHealth – to coordinate other types of care in Walgreen’s locations. I’m assuming the two EHRs will play nice with other from an interoperability standpoint. Implementation of all WellHealth systems is expected to be finalized by the end of next summer.

I can’t help but point out that both of these companies are based in Atlanta, and I know for a fact that their team members congregate at similar networking events, so I wonder if we’ll see some synergy between them in the near future.

In any case, if predictions of retail clinic growth prove to be true – a recent Rand Report notes that use of retail health clinics quadrupled between 2007 and 2009, and will continue to grow – it seems likely that we’ll see HIT companies popping up in clinics across the country.

On a completely unrelated note, my daughters and I joined the rest of my company’s team members at the annual Lekotek Run 4 Kids last weekend. We had a great time and enjoyed helping out a great cause. I was a bit apprehensive that my youngest would enjoy it. Before the race began, she came up to me with number in hand and asked, “Is it okay if I lose?” Happily, she declared herself a winner after crossing the finish line and receiving a medal along with her sister and all the other kids.

I wonder if this is a sentiment physicians in smaller practices sometimes have as they consider implementing an EHR in the hopes of receiving Meaningful Use incentive money. Do some just want to throw in the towel and “lose?” Do some not want to even start the race? I’m always looking for additional Meaningful Use wisdom from the under-6 set, so please enlighten me in the comments below.

About the author

Jennifer Dennard

As Social Marketing Director at Billian, Jennifer Dennard is responsible for the continuing development and implementation of the company's social media strategies for Billian's HealthDATA and Porter Research. She is a regular contributor to a number of healthcare blogs and currently manages social marketing channels for the Health IT Leadership Summit and Technology Association of Georgia’s Health Society. You can find her on Twitter @JennDennard.

   

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